


not midas

by thecivilunrest



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Prostitution, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-23
Updated: 2014-08-23
Packaged: 2018-02-14 08:43:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2185254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecivilunrest/pseuds/thecivilunrest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>First rule of being a hooker: do whatever makes your client happy</p>
            </blockquote>





	not midas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moriuh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moriuh/gifts).



> For Mori, who requested "mandy/lip + prostitute/client au."

Objectively speaking, Phillip Gallagher is a good fuck. 

He calls himself Lip and so does Mandy out loud--first rule of being a hooker: do whatever makes your client happy--but she had Googled him one night after work and found out who he is. 

Phillip Gallagher. Twenty-five years old, graduated cum laude from University of Chicago, like that means something. Grew up in the slums and lucked out with getting a genius-level brain and a 4.1 GPA in high school that resulted in a full ride to college. Now is a successful entrepreneur, after having invented a robot oven that perfectly heats up hot pockets or something. 

Mandy skimmed, sue her. 

All she knows for is that Phillip Gallagher--who calls himself Lip after work like that means that he’s still the poor white kid from the Southside instead of a millionaire--gives money to hookers like he has something to prove, and is a good fuck, all things considered. 

 

The first time Lip ever comes to the whorehouse they get paired together entirely by chance. Mandy’s having a slow night--and suddenly he walks in, trying too hard to blend in. She can smell the money coming off of him in waves right away--every hooker has a sixth sense for cash--and unlike a lot of the sick bastards that walk in here he’s actually good looking. 

“I’ll take this one,” Mandy tells Svetlana, tugging on her boots as she does so. 

Svetlana raises her eyebrows, her eyes boring into Mandy’s eyes. Mandy has to force herself to keep looking. Mandy is a hard bitch but Svetlana is practically diamond. She’s been in the business since she was a kid and has seen and done bad shit--you can see it reflected in her eyes every time she looks at you for too long. 

“Be careful,” she says finally, her accent thicker than usual. 

Mandy doesn’t get it at first. It’s only after Lip’s fifth visit in as many weeks--asking for Mandy every time like she’s good enough to have a waiting list--she understands what Svetlana meant. But by then it’s too late. 

 

Most guys like it when she fakes orgasms. Mandy’s been in this business long enough to know that most guys can’t tell the difference between a real orgasm and a fake one anyway. All she has to do is moan and they feel proud of themselves and act like they’re the best thing that’s ever happened to Mandy. 

She’s fine with letting them think that, as long as they pay her at the end of the night. Customer satisfaction and all that.

But one of the first full first sentences that Lip ever says to Mandy is, “Don’t bullshit me.” 

“What?” 

“You heard me. I know how you hookers work, and I’m here to tell you right now: don’t bullshit me. I can tell the difference.” 

Mandy only smiles and wonders what this guy’s problem is. “Alright,” she says. “Let’s see if you can tell.” 

By the end of the night, she knows he can. 

 

They don’t kiss on the mouth at first. It’s trite and cliche, but Mandy doesn’t kiss guys on the mouth. It’s too personal. Kissing reveals a lot about a person--if they use their teeth, if they don’t, the amount of tongue. Some kissing should be considered sex anyway, and she’s only paid for one fuck a session not two, and so no. Mandy doesn’t kiss client on the mouth. 

At least not until Lip comes into her room and grabs her by the shoulder and presses their faces together. 

Mandy can’t remember the last time she kissed a man and so the sensation makes her pause for a minute before she can react. Lip Gallagher is a rough kisser; he uses his teeth and his tongue but despite that, somehow, it’s actually hot. 

She’s had rough sex before, with guys who are upset and want to tear her apart, like hurting her would heal them. Somehow, even with his fingers bruising her skin, Lip isn’t like that. Instead it’s like he wants to devour her, to gnaw on her all the way to her bones and then save them so that he can use them again. 

Mandy doesn’t know how to feel about that so she kisses him back and goes along with whatever he wants. 

Lip makes her come with his fingers between her legs. He smothers her screams with his mouth and Mandy lets him. Lets him and wishes that she could have more. 

 

After Lip’s tenth visit he starts sharing his smokes with her after they fuck. Mandy accepts--willing to accept free nicotine whenever she can get it--and they sit in silence together. 

Once, Mandy went to the Art Institute of Chicago, just to feel like something more than some cheap hooker from the wrong part of town, like she’d dreamed of being when she was a kid. She wore her best clothes and _still_ got looked at like she was going to try to shove some piece of priceless art into her purse. 

She didn’t really get the contemporary art sculptures, or any of that Modern Era shit--that all seemed like something she’d find in the dumpster that she walks by every day to get to work, just with a fancy name and high dollar price tag attached--but the classic art she likes. She looked at the big paintings for hours before she got sick of the way the security guard kept watching her every move. 

Mandy can admire Lip in much the same way. The moon shining through the small window and highlighting his profile, smoke curling up like ribbons from the cigarette in his hand, if she doesn’t look very hard he’s like a classical painting. Timeless. Perfect.

Untouchable. At least to her. 

When she starts her second cigarette, she says, “I’m just a hooker, you know?” 

Lip just looks at her, cigarette between his lips. “Of course I know that.” He sounds like every male high school teacher that Mandy has ever had, like she’s too stupid to be here and if she fucks him he might pass her, maybe. He’s right, but the truth still burns. “Did you think I forgot?”

If Mandy had the energy to hate clients, she would hate him in that moment. Instead she closes her eyes and holds the smoke in her mouth for as long as she can before exhaling. “Just making sure.” 

 

Lip comes in every Wednesday like clockwork. 

Mandy has had clients that like to see her regularly, and she always appreciates that, because regulars always get charged a bit higher than newcomers, and the best part is they actually pay it. 

“Don’t you have a life?” she asks him, once. 

“If I was a well adjusted person would I really spend this much time with a hooker?” Lip pauses from buttoning his shirt to look at her. She does not look away. 

“Guess not,” Mandy says. 

 

Mandy does not have slow sex. She never has, not even when she was a kid and starting to figure out how shit works, but now she’s on the clock. One minute spent fucking someone too long could be another minute that she could be fucking someone else and getting more money. 

One night that’s what Lip wants, and of course Mandy does what the client wants. 

They trade kisses the way that kids trade those weird Pokemon cards and he takes his time taking off her skirt and his pants. When he finally makes his way inside of her it’s too much and not enough. Mandy digs her nails into Lip’s back and shudders when she comes. 

“What was that?” she asks when they’re done and sharing their after-sex smoke. The smell of sex in the air seems to be lingering tonight, just like the way Lip’s hands had tonight. 

“Felt like it,” he says. Mandy takes his word for it. 

 

When Mandy was nine-years-old she had been a bride for Halloween. 

Her mother had found a veil on the curb of some place in the north side of town and had taken it home. Mandy had washed the ketchup stains out of it, and it looked beautiful with the white lacy dress that they had felt at Goodwill. 

Terry had been in jail then and so her mother said that they had to take pictures so that he’d know what a beautiful bride she was. Mandy had smiled through all the pictures that her mother had taken with the disposable camera. 

It turned out that the camera was a reject from the store and on sale, so most of the pictures didn’t turn out right, the lighting wonky. Mandy still has one of them though, sitting on her dresser at home, sunspot in the right corner. The spot almost covers her face, but doesn’t, and it was objectively the best picture that she has. 

When Mandy grew up she knew better than to expect a white dress and a ring and a happy ending. She should have known that such things weren’t beyond Lip’s reach. 

He tells her during their after fuck smoke. “I’m getting married,” he says, like he’s talking about the weather. 

For some reason, anger swells in Mandy’s chest. She’s fucked married guys before, ones that didn’t even have the decency to take off their rings, but this is different. Lip is...different. 

Svetlana’s warning comes rushing back to her. Mandy should have listened. 

“Does she know what you do every Wednesday night from eleven to midnight?” Mandy snarls. Anger is the best mask for pain. 

“No,” Lip says. “But if you think it means anything you can shut the fuck up right now.” 

“Oh, fuck you,” Mandy says, throwing her clothes at him before walking out the door. 

 

Lip misses his usual appointment the next week. Mandy sees the announcement in the newspaper that Svetlana keeps in the break room at their place of business when it’s dropped in front of her.

“Look at that,” Svetlana says. “Look at it hard and remember it next time you decide to play a game.” 

Mandy ignores her and reads the article instead. 

The girl’s name is Amanda and she looks like she belongs with Lip. Looks like a sorority girl, like she’s made of money and doesn’t have to resort to turning tricks. Mandy could watch her face go up in flames and be happy. 

 

When Lip comes back they fuck like savages. Mandy will have bruises on her back after this, but she doesn’t care, whispering “Harder,” into his ear like that’s possible. Her legs wobble in a good way when he lets her down. 

“I’m getting married tomorrow,” Lip says. 

“I know,” Mandy replies. She takes another cigarette, but doesn’t light it. 

And she never sees Phillip Gallagher again.


End file.
